One conventional example of such an image display device is a liquid crystal display device 101 shown in FIG. 7. This liquid crystal display device 101 includes a transparent protection member 103 made of, for example, glass or plastic and disposed on a liquid crystal display panel 102.
In this case, to protect the surface of the liquid crystal display panel 102 and a polarizing plate (not shown), a spacer 104 is interposed between the liquid crystal display panel 102 and the protection member 103, so that a gap 105 is provided between the liquid crystal display panel 102 and the protection member 103.
However, the gap 105 present between the liquid crystal display panel 102 and the protection member 103 causes light scattering, and this results in a reduction in contrast and in brightness. The presence of the gap 105 is an obstacle to the reduction in thickness of the panel.
In view of the above problems, a technique has been proposed in which the gap between the liquid crystal display panel and the protection member is filled with a resin (for example, Patent Document 1). However, the stress during the cure shrinkage of the cured resin causes deformation of the optical glass plates sandwiching the liquid crystal of the liquid crystal display panel. This results in display defects such as irregularities in orientation of the liquid crystal material.
Moreover, to improve the brightness and contrast of displayed images, the liquid crystal display device 101 includes a black frame-like light-shielding member (so-called black matrix, not shown) that is formed on the protection member 103 so as to be situated corresponding to the peripheral portion of the liquid crystal display panel 102.
However, in such a structure, when the gap 105 between the liquid crystal display panel 102 and the protection member 103 is filled with a photo-curable resin composition and rays of light are applied to cure the resin composition, the resin composition present in an area where the light-shielding member is formed may not be cured. This is because a sufficient amount of light does not reach that area.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-55641.